Tagged: classic pages

This post is part 2 of what is currently a 3 part series of updates to my SharePoint Framework application customizer as the capability has evolved since entering developer preview in June. Please see the links to parts 1 and 3 below.

When I first released my custom modern page header and footer using SharePoint Framework in June, there was one significant shortcoming with the built-in page placeholders on modern page experiences that made them impractical to use for a site-wide header and footer solution: modern site pages did not contain a PageFooter placeholder.

When application customizers were initially rolled out, modern site pages did not contain a PageFooter placeholder. Image from June 2017.

However, on or around August 11th, I noticed that the PageFooter placeholder started appearing on modern site pages. With this change, all modern page experiences now had PageHeader and PageFooter placeholders.

Modern site pages now contain a PageFooter placeholder! Image from August 2017.

Update to the SharePoint Framework application customizer

My original SPFx application customizer could not make use of the built-in page placeholders because at the time, modern site pages did not contain a PageFooter placeholder. Also, the PageHeader placeholder was located beneath the Office 365 suite bar instead of above it, which is where I had chosen to inject my custom header for classic pages using a SharePoint-hosted add-in. Because of this, I relied on fragile and unsupported DOM manipulation techniques that would break if Microsoft ever changed the class names or IDs of the main page content areas (modern site pages currently use a <div> with a CSS class of SPPageChrome, while modern list and library pages use a <div> with an ID of spoAppComponent for their main content areas).

I decided that having the page header beneath the suite bar was a worthwhile tradeoff to be able to leverage the built-in page placeholders and eliminate all of the ugly DOM manipulation I was previously doing. The updated code can be found in the HeaderFooterApplicationCustomizer.ts file contained within my Github repository at:

Since I decided to leverage the built-in PageHeader placeholder on modern pages beneath the suite bar, for the sake of consistency I also updated my SharePoint-hosted add-in to provide the option to inject the custom header in the same location on classic pages:

My SharePoint-hosted add-in now offers the ability to select whether to render the header above or below the suite bar.

Code for the updated SharePoint-hosted add-in may be found on Github at the following location:

Note that you must disable NoScript (if it is enabled) in order to install and utilize this add-in. For more information about NoScript and how to disable it, check out my post on NoScript and modern sites.

Putting it all together

With the SharePoint-hosted add-in and SharePoint Framework application customizer both installed on the same site, you can render a custom header and footer consistently across all classic and modern page experiences within that site.

Custom header and footer rendered on a classic page experience within a communication site using a SharePoint-hosted add-in.

Custom header and footer rendered on a modern page experience within a communication site using a SharePoint Framework application customizer and page placeholders.